[open] do you know why the body is a prison?

[skelepun]

Who: Sans and YOU! Open to literally everyone
When: Between this and the final judgment call on this.
Where: The Hold.
What: There's a skeleton in the dungeon, come let him rattle his bones at u
Warnings: Probably some mention of murder/death/etc! But mostly pretty tame, I imagine. Will edit if that changes.


The hold was incredible. Three solid walls, one semi-solid wall, a bench-bed hybrid that wrecked havoc on his back, and all the down time a skeleton could ask for. It was perfect. The best vacation he's ever had.

It'll be a real bummer once all of it goes away again.

Whatever the kid is up to, they're biding their time. And the few times a stray unpleasant thought passed through his skull, Sans is able to wave them away easily enough. He didn't care for thinking about Chara's dead body, so he didn't think about it. The worrying notion that, perhaps, this reality experienced time differently from what he knew...

Again: not thinking about it. The perfect cure, really.

Of course, he couldn't exactly stop people from visiting him here. With news spreading throughout the ship of what happened, more and more people were reaching out to him with why spelled out across their furrowed brows. Sans wished he could help them, sincerely. It would be a load off both their minds.

Too bad the answer was just too damn huge.

( ooc: feel free to visit sans in the hold any time, either before or after your character has 'cast their vote (or not)' on his fate. woo! )

Comments

before!

[seeingscarlet]

[This time Wanda takes no pleasure from being here in her official capacity. She's wearing one of her Emirian dresses this time instead of going for the intimidation factor - she can get in his head anyway, so there's no point.

And it's Sans. This whole mess seems...somewhat out of character.

Judging by the face at the door, Wanda's running on fumes. She manages a weak, half-hearted smile.]

I heard you had a bad day.

[skelepun]

[Well, if it isn't the determination mage. And she's looking... Decidedly more official than Sans remembered her as. It's a cold comfort, but Sans feels a little relieved she looks tired rather than vengeful. None of this would matter for long, but it would be nice to avoid uncomfortable discussions in the long run.]

Eh, I've had worse. [And, cheerfully:] You know they feed you in here? It's like room service.

[seeingscarlet]

Sans... [She sighs heavily. This is a lot harder when you feel like you ought to start at anger but can't.]

What happened? Was it another accident? [No, she doesn't need him to tell her, but Wanda will grant him this small courtesy.]

[skelepun]

[Grinning wider, Sans leaned forward until his elbows were balanced against his femurs, jaw resting in his cupped hands.]

Heh, if I were to say it was, would you believe me?

[A wink. Quiet acknowledgement that no, no she would not.]

Anyway, it's not a very exciting story.

[seeingscarlet]

[She would rather it was an accident, or that there's something else going on that isn't immediately apparent. It's easier than admitting that even with her powers she can still misjudge someone that completely.]

I want to hear it anyway.

[And if Sans really won't tell her...then she's just going to have to take it.]

[skelepun]

[There's a certain commandingness to her that makes Sans want to dig in his heels -- not out of resistance so much as curiosity. How far would she go? It was interesting, sometimes, to see the limits of how much people cared to find answers.

Interesting, but not particularly kind. Sans relents.]

They hurt my brother. [Technically, all Chara did here was scare Papyrus, but that was far from their greatest sin in Sans' mind. Nor was it even the full reason for meeting Chara on the observation deck that night, but it certainly helped.] I dunno what else to tell ya.

[seeingscarlet]

[That gets a reaction - understanding and surprise.]

How could a small child hurt your brother? [Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say 'normal' small child. Wouldn't most kids run away from a skeleton?]

[skelepun]

[Ah, the million dollar question. Sans could protect himself well enough if humans caught wind of just how easy it was to kill a monster, but his brother...

Papyrus may be far tougher than Sans, but toughness doesn't matter much if you refuse to use it.

We can be a little fragile, he thinks, focusing all his energy on that little phrase without actually voicing it. As long as she was going to read his mind anyway, might as well get some information for himself in the process. Just how specific could she get?]

[seeingscarlet]

[Except she isn't, not yet. There are enough horrors in there from Emiri that she'd really rather not go poking through a murder, although this is the final warning Sans is going to get.

She sighs, more tired of the whole business than anything else.]

Don't make me do my job.

[skelepun]

[The exhaustion in her voice is enough to answer at least one of Sans' question. He isn't in the mood to push, especially not when that exhaustion strikes a kinship with his own.]

Heh, awright. Look. Humans and monsters -- let's say we lost a war against you guys for a reason. We don't hold up well against you guys.

[seeingscarlet]

[That...doesn't make much sense. Okay, Sans is about the same height as a kid, but that doesn't explain the obvious power difference here.]

Even when you can do... [She motions, clearly referring to that thing Sans almost hit her with last month.] Or are all of the humans like me?

[skelepun]

[It's amazing, for a race of creatures so strong to not realize it. Maybe it all existed on a scale. Hell if Sans could understand.]

Nope... you're pretty rare, actually. Humans had mages, once, they used magic to seal us underground, but I've never seen one use it. [Sans gives her a meaningfully coy look.] Until I got here, f'course.

I... I've got my tricks. But they're just that: tricks. In a fair fight, I'm dust every time. And I do mean every time, Wan.

[seeingscarlet]

We never have, I think. There aren't humans like me at home.

[Meanwhile, on Wanda's world people would generally run away screaming from Sans. Even she'd been afraid until she peeked in his head.]

It's happened before?

[More than once, by the sound of it. But there are stories in her world of deathless wizards burned to ashes who still managed to put themselves back together...so maybe it's not that far outside the realm of possibility.]

[skelepun]

Heh. What is before, kiddo?

[This line of questioning is getting uncomfortable. Redirection? Redirection.]

You ever heard of string theory?

[seeingscarlet]

[Quietly:] Every time means more than once.

...was it written by a crazy robot? [She's only half-kidding. Ultron would go on and on about strings, so much so that 'String Theory' could very well be his personal manifesto.]

[skelepun]

[Fidgeting with the gaps between his carpels, Sans looks genuinely amused at the thought.]

Could be, in some other dimension. That's what sting theory proposes, a world made up of points that exist on only one dimension, building out all the rest. You got length, width, height, and time -- and those are just the dimensions our universe can fathom.

[He scratches at the back of his skull, looking a little lost in thought. His work with 👎☼📬 ☝✌💧❄☜☼ certainly implied a persistence beyond what any of them could understand. Loops in the dimensional fabric of spacetime, some open, some closed. Sans' world was almost certainly a closed loop... even if it didn't start that way.]

--Anyway, string theory evolves into M-theory, which becomes a theory of multiverses, and honestly? I'd say this ship and all of us existing in one temporal-dimensional point is basically the scientific find of the century. Hell, the millennium. We really shouldn't be here at all, y'know...? Or we should be goop.

[It's amazing how freeing it is to voice his doubts, even if they sort of terrify him.]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, yeah. It's happened before. Time doesn't mean much when someone has the power to tug at those strings, you get me?